Okay, so it's been a little over a month since our last blog entry, but we've been experiencing computer difficulties for almost that entire time and it now looks as if we are going to have to buy a new computer. Ours keeps shorting out the phones in our house. We've paid a computer guy to put in a new hard-drive and a new modem over the last couple of weeks and it is still acting weird, but I guess it's almost 7 years old. I don't even know how long a computer's life span should be, but 7 years seems pretty good.
Anyway, I have just one question...where has the summer gone? After Europe it seemed to just fly by and I'm not sure I even did anything. I did have an entire week of studying. I read two social studies text books all the way through. One on World History and the other on US History. I didn't do this for fun, but rather I had to take the Middle School Social Studies Praxis Exam to qualify for Bush's Highly Qualified Teacher stuff. The tests are completely bogus and in contradition to any kind of assessment of concepts and intelligence. They are merely 90 multiple choice questions pulled from 10,000 years of history that test specific dates, people, ideas, events, etc. Basically the kind of test that makes you memorize stuff, reguritate it and then forget it....no learning what-so-ever! I will find out in about two weeks if I passed, but even though I studied so hard, I didn't feel good about it.
The next week we had a big family reunion at the beach. It was fun. We stayed in Lincoln City, pretty much right on the beach. I got to meet a bunch of the Dukes family that lives in Iowa and all over the US. They are all really nice people. We pretty much just ate, talked, and relaxed. It was fun but not necessarily good for my ever-expanding waist line.
Amy and I have also bought a new vehicle, a Honda Pilot...some new furniture, leather, easy to clean....and are moving into a phase where we can start thinking about children. We are just really trying to set our ducks in a row before we go there. We want to have two reliable, long-term cars paid off; a bunch of debt paid off; and some money in savings. Now that we have Europe done, the cars being taken care of, kid-friendly furniture, we are working hard to pay off all of that debt and we are hoping that in about a year from now that there will be a bambino. We shall see. I like the country lyric that says, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." I'm a planner, but things don't always work out the way I plan.
So this is now my last week of summer. I go back next week and so that raises the question again...where did summer go? I guess it was Europe, car shopping, dealing with the computer, studying and taking a test, going to the family reunion, house work, going to the gym, a few days of golfing, and then it was over. Ah well, bummer...at least Duck Football starts soon. Well, if anyone is still reading this blog, take care and we love comments. Dave
p.s.-I'd tried to put some pictures on here, but our stupid computer isn't appearing to be able to do it right now. Sorry
